


The Library Refuge of the Resistance

by Massiel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (His Full Name According To Me And My Friends Is Bennett Organa-Solo), Ben Organa, Ben's Calligraphy Set, Gen, POV Original Character, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Boy Just Wants To Write Fancy In Peace, Young Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 20:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13395558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Massiel/pseuds/Massiel
Summary: The child of Resistance fighters, Picotee likes to spend her spare time in the makeshift library she's helped set up in the reference room. Ben Organa, on a short leave from the new Jedi Temple, decides to seek refuge there from some pilot trainees that refuse to stop taunting him.Anyway, he loses it on them, and then gets a call from his mom.





	The Library Refuge of the Resistance

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you see a Tumblr post and think, "That's the most Bennett Organa-Solo thing I've ever heard in my LIFE," and then you write a whole fic based on it because no one else will and you have to spread the love. And it also turns out to be more emotional than you expected.
> 
> Based on this: (http://kawaiirobonoid.tumblr.com/post/167210700084/i-just-saw-a-kid-yell-fuck-off-at-the-top-of-his)
> 
> Also, Ben drops the f-bomb as much as his mom and dad would've in the OT, if they'd been allowed.
> 
> Beta-read by my beloved, Catline.

Picotee’s favorite place to be on every single Resistance base is the reference room. Libraries are mostly a thing of the past for the freedom fighters, to be honest—physical books are too heavy, and the most important pieces of information, in their leaders’ opinions, are tactical in nature—but no matter what planet they land on, there is always one room dedicated to data and maps and the occasional holobook. She’s made it her unofficial duty, curating everything within these four walls, and she knows if something’s even a centimeter away from its usual slot. Her time in the ref room isn’t all that frequent, but when she’s not scrubbing down astromechs Picotee is usually here reading, curled up in one of the empty cubbyholes way in the back.

After a long shift of cleaning astromechs post-skirmish, she settles in with a decades-old holobook—she wonders occasionally if they get any dimmer with age—that seems to be very loosely based on the lives of some of the heroes of the Clone Wars. Her nook is, technically speaking, a cramped space between two metal shelving units that she put a curtain over and not much more, but no one bothers her here. Which is the way Picotee likes it.

Except—she strains her hearing to be sure—she thinks someone’s actually coming in. They open the door almost silently, and their footsteps are barely audible as they pad into the room and shut the door behind them. Then she hears the chair scrape on the floor as it’s pulled back from the single table more or less located in the center of the room. Whoever it is, they clearly intend to use the room for its given purpose, so she doesn’t hold the interruption of her solitude against them. 

She’s about to return to her holobook when she hears two little _plinks_ of something being set down, then a mild, rhythmic scratching, and her curiosity gets the better of her. Picotee pushes aside the curtain with a finger and studies the only other person she’s ever seen in the ref room at the same time as her. At first, she doesn’t recognize him since his back is to her: wavy black hair, slumped in his seat. 

Then she notices the tunic he’s wearing, and she knows why she couldn’t place him. He only arrived at the base recently. It’s Ben Organa, visiting from the new Jedi temple. 

Well, it makes sense that he’d come here of all places. To be left alone.

The general’s son has only been here for about a week, but it took less than half that time for the pilots-in-training his age—specifically, the fourteens and fifteens, only a few years older than her—to realize they had a target on the ground. Picotee had stayed out of it, but it was impossible not to see that they were going out of their way to annoy Ben. It was a stupid move for a number of reasons—Really? Harrassing a Force user? _And_ Leia Organa’s son?—but if they can’t see that, it’s better they learn it on base than in battle. 

Picotee knows that Jedi aren’t meant to get angry. _She_ wouldn’t have been able to be one, if it meant the kind of treatment Ben’s getting. And this is from people that are supposed to be on the same side. But from the glimpses she’s seen in the mess hall, he’s doing his best to ignore them—deflect them like he’d deflect blaster shots with a lightsaber, maybe. Things can only take so much pressure, though, before they crack.

She sees Ben’s back stiffen, knuckles turn white on the hand that’s holding his paper— _actual paper_ —and quietly sets her holobook down. Seconds later, the handle turns and her heart sinks.

They just had to follow him here, didn’t they?

“Ben Solo, solo as usual. We didn’t see you at trainee bonding last night.”

His voice is tight when he replies. “I was meditating.”

“Meditating!” the pilot kid scoffs. Picotee doesn’t recognize the voice, but she hopes it’s not one of Poe Dameron’s friends; he’ll be so disappointed that they’re acting like this. “And training exercises this morning?”

“Lightsaber practice. And in case it’s slipped your minds, I’m not—” Ben pauses almost imperceptibly, then continues—“I’m not one of you.”

“Definitely not,” a second trainee says in disgust. “What the hell is all this?”

Without looking, she knows the kid is referring to whatever Ben’s writing. Doing so on something as old-fashioned—and rare—as paper, instead of flimsiplast or a datapad, is bound to rub them the wrong way without Ben even trying.

She might not have the Force, but Picotee senses trouble.

“None of your business. You don’t really want to do this, all right? Just leave,” he says.

It sounds like he’s giving them an out, but she doesn’t hold out any hope that they’ll take it. It’s not their style.

As it turns out, they don’t. 

She’s not entirely sure who starts it, because she pulls back slightly, but it looks like one of the trainees lunges for Ben’s paper, knocking an inkwell off the table and onto the floor in the process. It shatters, spilling black ink everywhere, and with it, Picotee can visualize Ben’s tolerance shattering too.

And he does shatter, launching up from his chair, the table the only thing preventing him from throwing himself at his antagonists.

“By all the fucking stars, what do you even fucking get out of this? I don’t go out of my way to bother _you_ , I don’t come into the hangar and fuck with your controls. If you wanted to talk to me without being a kriffing instigator, it would be different, but you just can’t seem to handle interaction without being an asshole, so _get the fuck out of here_!”

If she were out there, she’d be quaking in her boots. From all appearances, it looks like the pilot trainees, despite their bravado, are doing the same thing. To be honest, the yelling is alarming, and Picotee can feel her heart thudding in her ribcage the way it does when she gets told they have to evacuate a base, but… He doesn’t know she’s here. And honestly, she would have lost it on them, too. If she was bigger. Of course, she also likes to think she wouldn’t have let it go on for so long. Who cares about the Jedi way when it hurts you like that?

Judging by the glimpses of panicked looks she sees on their faces as they scramble to get out of the ref room, Picotee knows the boys know they got off easy. Their footsteps and voices echo down the hallway until they’re nothing but an annoying buzz.

There’s a moment of silence before Ben shuts the door. Picotee’s pressed all the way back against the wall of her cubbyhole, but she can hear him breathing heavy, and it sounds upset. About what in particular, she’s not as sure. She creeps forward until she’s at the perfect spying distance again. He’s moving around the ref room again, quiet as before, picking his things up off the floor, when his comlink buzzes.

Ben pauses in his work and answers in a soft voice. “Hi, Mama.”

For a second, Picotee sees him as a kid like her, not a Jedi. One that’s had to deal with a lot that most people don’t even think about, one whose mother is a leader of the Resistance, one who’s not supposed to get angry at people who hurt him, let alone retaliate, and because Picotee has a mother, she knows exactly what Ben’s will say.

The channel crackles a little—this base is static-filled, for reasons none of the techs have quite figured out or managed to compensate for yet—and then the general says, “Ben Organa-Solo.”

“Did they tell you, or did you sense it?” is all he asks, and he sounds so tired.

“Both. Ben, I know that they’ve been giving you trouble. But I thought that you were working on this.”

“I _am_. They just keep pushing, and I don’t know how I can be expected to sit here and just accept that—” He cuts off, catching his voice rising, and tries again. “I know. Forgiveness, and non-reaction. I’m trying.”

“Come down to the command center, all right? I’ve got someone who could use your eyes on something.”

“I’ll be right there.” He clicks off the comlink and takes a deep breath. Even though she isn’t Force-sensitive, Picotee can feel the atmosphere of the room change as Ben gets control of his emotions. 

There’s a bit of rustling as he gathers up his writing materials and places them behind a stack of maps. Evidently he wants to return, but she can’t imagine why—

“I’m sorry if we—I—disturbed you. And about the mess. As soon as I’m done at command with the general, I’ll come back to clean up, if that’s all right,” he says. He’s standing a comfortable distance away, probably because he doesn’t want to scare her. 

How did he know she was here? No, stupid question. She knows how. And he probably doesn’t even need to see her to know that she’s nodding in agreement, but she pushes her way out of her cubbyhole anyway.

Except when she pushes the curtain aside, he’s already left the room. It looks like a bit of a storm passed through, but not as bad as she expected. All that’s left is the pool of ink on the floor, really, and that’s something she can take care of herself.

But… then she’d be ignoring what Ben said he wants. Of course, if the ink dries, it’s going to be much more of a pain to scrub out, but she can wait. Help even, maybe. Because she feels a little guilty that she just hid with her holobook instead of calling out the trainees for being jerks this time. And everyone could use the knowledge that someone on their side is _on their side._

So she sits in the chair and reads until Ben gets back, losing herself in a tale of incredible teamwork and totally unbelievable narrow escapes, and when he walks back through the door to the ref room and sees that she’s still there, he smiles and says, “Nice library.”

 


End file.
